John McLeod and Christina Munro of Kincardine, Ross-shire

[Forfarian]

Regarding his birth, the records would suggest he was born in 1839

•   6 June 1841 census, age 2 = born 1839 (next sibling Barbara born March 1841)
or between 7 June 1838 and 6 June 1839
•   30 March 1851 census, Born Morefield, age 10 = born 1840
or between 31 March 1838 and 30 March 1839
•   Married March 1866, age 27 = born 1839
or between March 1838 and March 1839
•   April 1866 Immigration passenger list, age 27 = born 1839
or between March 1838 and March 1839
•   He died 8 Oct 1885 Thebarton S.A. (age 46) = born 1839.
or between 9 October 1838 and 8 October 1839

If all these ages are accurate that would narrow down possible dates of birth to between 9 October 1838 and 31 March 1839.

[Sildeag]

The birthplace wasn't given but he was 2 years old in the 1841 census.

The Parish Register records the marriage 20 February, 1818 of John McLeod, resident Strathcainard, to Christina Munro, resident Glacach. 

Morefield is what I used as the birthplace.  Coigach - Morefield 41-23

I noticed I had come across Alexander McLeod and Elspeth Fraser previously (Dec 8, 2020).  Is it likely that the grandparents moved to Coigach from (or vice-versa) Urquhart and Logie Wester, Ross and Cromarty?  See: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VQ73-Y84

[Neale1961]

I noticed I had come across Alexander McLeod and Elspeth Fraser previously (Dec 8, 2020).  Is it likely that the grandparents moved to Coigach from (or vice-versa) Urquhart and Logie Wester, Ross and Cromarty?  See: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VQ73-Y84

There are 6 baptisms in URQUHART AND LOGIE WESTER between 1783 and 1801 for children of an Alexander McLeod and an Elspet Fraser. (See Scotlands People)
None of the children are named John.
When dealing with common names like McLeod and Fraser, I would not assume these are the parents of John born abt 1795 in Strathcanaird.

[Sildeag]

Neale1961, thank you!

[wivenhoe]

"spend a lot of credits downloading certificates only to find that the parents names are "unknown"

I am assuming these are BDM certificates, 1855+, civil registration.

Can you identify these certificates.

[Sildeag]

No.  Some have the info such as parents names and some don't.  One can id the ones that are more likely to have parent names due to having mother's maiden name but many others have this info too.

Improvements:
I personally think Scotland's People should flag those post-1855 death records with parents unknown.
I also think the pre-1855 BMD records aren't worth 6 credits.
Since the index is free, allowing one to set the number shown on one page eg. "all", 100, 200, etc., would allow people to more readily search the index for the people they want reducing chances of making a mistake.
Usually for post-1855 deaths one gets 3 records but sometimes just 1 or 2.  Sometimes it is the other 2 random records that are the most helpful.

[Forfarian]

I personally think Scotland's People should flag those post-1855 death records with parents unknown.

The SP indexes are as transferred from the old printed books, which did not contain this information. SP are now adding extra information, for example mothers' maiden surnames to the deaths index and to the older births index. I personally would rather they got on with that than go back and start again with flagging up existing index entries from which one or other bit of information is missing.

You can often see that no mother's maiden surname is in the indexes because in the index the space for mmn is taken up with a row of dashes ------

Just remember that English, Welsh and Irish death certificates never tell you the names of the parents of the deceased, and be suitably grateful to the Scottish lawmakers who decreed that both fathers' names and mothers' maiden surnames should be included by default on all types of certificate. It's only when the informant didn't know the parents' names that those spaces are left blank.

I also think the pre-1855 BMD records aren't worth 6 credits.

Some are very informative, some are not. It would be impossible for SP to go back and decide which of the pre-1855 records is worth 6 credits and which are not. Or if not absolutely impossible, very expensive and time-consuming, and there are other refinements they could make that would be much more useful.

Since the index is free, allowing one to set the number shown on one page eg. "all", 100, 200, etc., would allow people to more readily search the index for the people they want reducing chances of making a mistake.

I don't understand this. If you do a wide search you get all the matching results, with 25 index listings per page, but you can look at as many pages as you like free of charge. For example I just searched post-1855 births for M*cdonald and I got 182,522 results in 7301 pages. It's up to you to refine your search to get a manageable number of results.

Usually for post-1855 deaths one gets 3 records but sometimes just 1 or 2.  Sometimes it is the other 2 random records that are the most helpful.

Are you talking about certificates now, rather than the index? The reason why you mostly get three results is that you get the whole of the page from the original book that contains the certificate you want and two that are usually unrelated.

[Sildeag]

Forfarian, I agree with what you have said.

The last two points:
You can save a webpage and create a PDF file.  Therefore, if you create one page with the pertinent records eg. all the McLeods (with all the spelling variants) one has a PDF file you can quickly search.  If the pages are limited to 25 index records per page, one has to save all those pages and then merge them all together.  It acts as a future reference if you name the PDF properly, when one is doing a one name study.  Freecen is good that way as it acts like a saved search and you can click on a record in the saved PDF to open up Freecen to view the detailed record of interest.  One is limited to 100 sec searches on Freecen.  I was lucky with Aberdeenshire because I helped transcribe a couple of parishes.

The two extras of post-1855 death.  Yes, the certificate downloaded is a page and with common names such as McLeod, Fraser, or Ross (may be hundreds of other names too) often comes with one parent or the other of the two extras being a McLeod, Fraser, or Ross.  People that one might not have looked up.  I also find the informant details interesting eg. son, brother-in-law, father-in-law, cousin, neighbour, etc. as it helps figure out relationships.

[Forfarian]

If you are looking at the index, you don't have to save the results as a .pdf. You can save the results of several pages into an Excel spreadsheet, and then sort and manipulate them in all sorts of ways.